Social networking has become an increasingly popular presence on the Internet. Social network services allow users to easily connect with friends, family members, and other users in order to share, among other things, comments regarding activities, interests, and other thoughts. Social media websites may act as platforms for users to inadvertently publicize or criticize a brand by expressing their opinions about the brand. Customers of a brand often turn to the online social media space to express their appreciation or criticism for a product or compare its performance and features with its rivals. In addition to these activities, customers also express their interests in other topics and spheres, which can be used as an important insight into the typical interests of the brand's user base.
As social networking has continued to grow, organizations have recognized value in the technology. For instance, organizations have found that social networking provides a great tool for managing their brand by monitoring user comments that mention the brand, whether the comments are positive or negative. In contemporary approaches, marketers identify important users by filtering users based on an exact subset of words, which are deemed relevant to the brand. However, even after applying this filter, the amount of data to sift through is large to identify important influencers and brand users.